We plan to build a maternity centre in the rural and remote village of Mitumbiri Village in TA Mlumbe in the Zomba region of Malawi where our Country Director, Grace, grew up.  

Having worked in Zomba for the last 3 years there are still vast areas with little or no access to essential maternal and newborn healthcare.  The distance to vital healthcare tragically results in women dying during pregnancy and  childbirth.  In Malawi the risk of dying during childbirth in 1 in 34 – compared to 1 in 6,900 in the UK.  

We believe no woman should die giving  birth so are working to address this staggering inequality. 

We plan to build, equip and staff a maternity centre which will provide essential ante-natal care for women in the surrounding rural villages with a population of 50,000, it will have two delivery  beds, four postnatal/antenatal and two full-time midwives.  Women will  be able to deliver their baby there, or will be referred to the hospital if a complicated delivery is likely, they will also be able to access post-natal and newborn care from the midwives.  The centre will also  provide space for a Health Surveillance Assistant to provide public health services and family planning, a covered area for women’s groups and other community groups to meet, vaccination and child health services, anti-retroviral therapy and malaria treatment.  These will be  provided by a medical assistant.  The staff will be employed by the government District Health Officer. In total, to build the maternity centre it will cost £26,316.  Maternity Worldwide has ambitious plans for this area and if we surpass this target funds will be used to support the government in developing a larger Health Centre in Chingali and for our community based projects to improve women’s knowledge around maternal health.